


Like Ants to Elephants

by tamiveldura



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 13:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3210260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamiveldura/pseuds/tamiveldura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heero’s work at the Preventers is usually slow… until one day a suspect comes in that can’t be cracked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Ants to Elephants

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the opening scene of a Law & Order (SVC) ep where they’re going to question a guy but they set up the room to be perfectly annoying first. So I took the idea and ran with it.

A hard head hit a harder desk with a resounding thwack. Heero glanced up from his paperwork. After a moment he went back to it. The head slid to the edge of the desk and a palm slapped the wood. Henery Fredricks lifted his blonde thatch of hair and eyed the barely-a-teenager that held so many levels of clearance above him. Heero didn’t react.

“You are perfect, aren’t you?”

Heero put his pen down. If Henery was speaking in single sentences then something was up. “I dislike that term.”

“Of course you do.” Henery sighed, “Because you’re modest.”

“I am practical.”

“Well if we’re fighting over terms you’re anal-retentive, but that’s not my point.”

“You have a point?” He carefully lifted an eyebrow. Heero’s clearance was higher, but Henery had been working for the Preventers and before that, the police force, for far longer than he. The man had seniority on his side of nothing else.

“You were trained to resist torture, right?”

“I was.” He slid the paperwork to the side and lay his hands on the desk. Just where was this going?

Henery showed no hostile signs, though. In fact, he appeared a bit sheepish. “Well, what’re the odds you could break someone?”

Heero frowned. “Quite good… but I was never officially trained for it.”

Suddenly the motor-mouth Heero was used to flipped on. “Oh good, because I have this bitch of a suspect that just refuses to tell me shit no matter what I do with him. Good cop, bad cop? No reaction. Isolation? Nothing. Threats? Less than nothing. He’s fucking stone! I’m at the end of my rope, my last straw, over the rainbow. I don’t know what to do with the guy. Can you take a whack at him? I mean we’ve thrown our best at this piece of granite and nothing but splinters chip off him.”

“You would like me to interrogate a suspect?” Did he even have clearance for that?

“Well, we call it questioning around here, but yeah. Think you can do it?”

His frown etched deeper. “I have little doubt I can. Is Une ok with this?”

“I haven’t talked to her yet. I wanted to run it by you first. What d’ya say?”

Heero slid his paperwork back under his fingertips. “If it’s cleared with Une, I am willing.”

“Brilliant.” Henery slapped the desk and kicked his chair back. “Don’t get comphy, I’ll be back in a shake.”

Heero returned to his reports and frowned.

Several hours and a minor scuffle with the coffee maker later Henery returned with a thin manila folder. He slapped it under Heero’s nose.

“You’re green, Mister Perfect, but we need you fast. We can’t legally hold him for more than six more hours.”

“Where is he now?”

“Holding cell.”

“Leave him there.” Heero picked up the file and promptly ignored Henery’s presence.

\--//--

The former gundam pilot glanced around an empty room. The single halogen bulb at the center seared his eyes it was so bright but it lit up every corner of the damp space. Down a hall from the better equipped ‘questioning rooms’ was this neglected space. It had a metal desk and a pair of chairs, all of which had seen better days.

Heero propped one of the chairs upside down and twisted a foot off of one of the four corners. When the chair was righted it rocked considerably. Good. He did the same to the second chair and adjusted a foot on one desk corner for a similar effect. He licked his thumb and smeared a mark on the mirror window, slightly off center and not-quite straight. Last he gave the bulb a half turn. It began to flicker.

He turned the light off as he exited. “Bring him in.” Heero nodded to the men just outside the door. Several headed down the hall.

Heero heard his suspect before he saw him. The voice was loud, taunting, familiar.

“Gonna try again you pansy twerps? You think you can take me? Huh? Bring it, I’ll shoulder whatever you can throw at me you sons of bitches—get offa me, I can walk. What? What’s that? Oh, fuck you too! Fuck you, fuck your mother, fuck your dog and let go of the braid or I will own you, bitch.”

They shoved a hell-fire wiry body into the room. He spun about and sneered. Heero stepped into his line of escape. The sneer faltered.

“Oh they’ve brought in the big guns, have they? I’m too good for them, right? Brilliant. It’ll be just like old times, hey oh-one?”

Henery was suddenly doubtful. “Heya, Yuy. I didn’t realize—“

“Don’t open this door. Lock us in.”

“Hey, man. Are you sure?”

Duo cackled. “Of course he’s sure you slimy maggot. He’s the Perfect Soldier, hasn’t he told you? The best at everything he does, better than you, better than your men, better than your dog—“

Heero closed the door behind him, cutting off Duo’s rant to the men outside.

“Hey, I was just getting warmed up!” Duo flung himself to the window and started making faces.

Heero flicked the light on.

The braided boy flinched away from it, recovered in the next second and continued making faces. He stuck his tongue out, rolled his eyes, bared his teeth and growled. He walked his fingers along the window. He spotted the smear Heero had made and he faltered again.

His recovery was less smooth. Duo spun himself back to the table, flopped in a chair, nearly sprawled on the floor when it rocked against his weight. “Damn fucking thing-“ He muttered and tested the displacement with a few jerks. He changed chairs. Cursed. Sat on the table. Cursed again.

“Don’t you have anything in here that doesn’t move ridiculously?!”

The light flickered madly. Duo smacked it, sent it swinging and blinking in a wide oval.

 

“God damned piece of shit room. Shit cops. Shit dogs. Shit fucking space. I saved you bastards from a war, fuck you and your scare tactics. You think I don’t know what you’re doing?!” He shouted at the glass. “I’ve put up with crap better than you! Fucking Kushranada couldn’t crack this nut! Heero!” He spun about suddenly, “tell them they’re wasting their time! This is crazy! Just let me rot in a cell, you’ve got nothing on me!” He turned back to the window, “Nothing, you hear! You have to let me go eventually!”

\--//--

Une removed her glasses slowly. “He knows Heero? What do we have on this kid?”

“Nothing.” Henery grumbled and passed her the file. “Only the physical doc gave us when we brought him in. I didn’t know Heero knew him or I wouldn’t have asked him to do this.”

“Nor would I have approved it.” Une confided. “You’re sure he said he was ok with this?” She flicked a picture out of the way and frowned at the sparse info on the paper.

“He said ok. Should I have asked again?”

“No… if he said it, he meant it. Do we even have this boy’s name? What’s with the interns these days, can’t even get basics?”

Henery rubbed the back of his head. The window shook and he flinched back from the face the braided boy made against the glass. “Not their fault. He won’t give anything up. No name, rank, number, pet cat’s name, nothing.”

The glass rattled again but this time the boy was working feverishly to clean the window with his sleeve.

“What is he doing?” Une asked.

“Beats me. This is the most action we’ve seen out of him since we pulled him in. Heero hasn’t even done anything yet.”

The boy flipped a chair over and twisted at the screw-in feet. His frantic rush hampered his progress.

“On the contrary, Agent Fredricks.” She replaced her glasses pointedly, “He’s done everything.”

\--//--

He was in tears when Heero finally signaled the men to unlock the door. He exited quickly, unwilling to watch any longer. Henery was at his side in an instant.

“Look, I’m really sorry Heero. I had no idea you knew him. Why didn’t you say anything? We would have found some other solution.”

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not. You just watched a friend loose his mind in there! It’s not fine!”

“The man in there was not my friend.”

“Well, ok not friend, but someone you knew anyway—“

“You do not understand. The Duo Maxwell I knew. The Shinigami I fought alongside… he was never here. The God of Death doesn’t rant and rave in a closed cell. He doesn’t pick up on small irritants like a rocking chair or a smear on glass and obsess over them until the urge to fix it drives him to action. Zero-Two was a strong soldier. A Perfect Soldier. Capture meant rest and silence. Recovery if necessary. Constant sleep or a state close to it.” He turned toward his desk. “My friend was never here. He died in AC one nine six after the Christmas holiday.”

Henery rubbed his head. “One nine six? The Mariemana incident?”

“He left us then. What you saw here…” He shook his head. “It compares like ants to elephants.”

“Well… alright if you say so.”

“I do.”

“Ok, ok, I get it. Fine, well, tomorrow I have a newbie for you. He’s being hired in the garage but I need you to give him a tour- explain things. He’s a tall kid, big bangs over his eyes but he looks about your age, I figure you should have at least one friend around here. You work too much.”

“Tall? Does he have green eyes?”

“Um… yeah I think so. Why? You know him too?”

Heero shook his head and found a pen to finish his paperwork. “No. Of course not.”

Henery sighed and turned away. “Of course not.” He muttered.


End file.
